Derek Jeter is the Daily News' New Yorker of the Year: Yankee captain is inspiration for city's kids

Dec 26, 2009 | 5:44 PM

On the field, shortstop Derek Jeter set Yankee record for hits and led the team to its 27th World Series title. (Sipkin/News)

It was a year when New York's economic foundation cracked like a cheap pencil. When everyone knew someone who was unemployed, and too often it was the person in the mirror. When the summons went out for a force of life capable of telling the blahs to drop dead.

The Bombers had a magical year. They often do. But this was something special. Christening their grand new Stadium, the team tapped into the indomitable spirit that undergirds the Big Town as surely as the bedrock.

New Yorkers rallied because here were winners and because, far more important, here were winners with unique class.

Jeter class.

Okay, let us here grant for the record what Derek Jeter did not do. He did not cure cancer. He did not save the polar bears. Nor was he the first shortstop elected President or named to the Supreme Court. One questions whether he could have landed a jet safely in the Hudson River.

But Jeter did accomplish something far more substantial than hitting for average and fielding his position. All across professional sports are lots of guys who put up big numbers and collect enormous paychecks for their production. They come and go from city to city. They are cheered. But hardly are they beloved.

Jeter is beloved. And that powerful bond - player to team to fans to city - has enabled him to buoy the pride of millions year in and year out, this year most of all.

Think about the swagger that creeps into talking about New York with unfortunates from elsewhere.

For 14 years, he has been the face of athletic excellence in New York: 10-time All-Star, four Gold Gloves, career .317 batting average. In 2009, at age 35, he batted .334 and entered the Yankee record books as the team's all-time hit champ. He also captained the squad to 103 regular season victories, a 40th pennant and a 27th World Championship - the fifth while he has anchored the franchise.

Throughout, Jeter has conducted himself with grace, balletic grace in movement, a gentleman's grace in life.

Some of his peers in professional sports grumble about their contracts or make noises about going to other teams unless they get a huge salary bump. Not Jeter.

Some of his peers make headlines with stories about discord at home or untoward escapades. Not Jeter.

Some of his peers create charities for window-dressing. Not Jeter. His foundation awards high school and college scholarships both in New York and in Kalamazoo, Mich., where he grew up.

Some of his peers use steroids and deny it. Some use steroids and come clean. Jeter has never had to make that choice - because he never made the stupid decision in the first place.

Some of his peers carry weapons, shoot people - or themselves - and go to jail. Not Jeter.

And some of his peers have an uneasy relationship with fans because they think they are a cut above. Not Jeter.

This is a man who has the qualities adults admire and children can look up to. Somehow he combines enormous talent with hard work, riches with responsibility, fantastic success with confident modesty and intense competitiveness with true sportsmanship.

And somehow Jeter seems to shoulder the mantle of DiMaggio, Gehrig, Ruth and all the others as if the burden were no heavier than a warmup jacket, a remarkable feat in an age that gives no quarter to celebrity privacy.

When the Yanks beat the Phillies 7-3 in the sixth game of the Series, New York let out an ecstatic roar. And the ticker-tape parade a few days later became an expression of much deeper joy.

Millions poured out to cheer the Yankees for being a shaft of light in a sky thick with storm clouds. To thank Mark Teixeira, the acquisition who had a monster regular season. To thank A-Rod for postseason heroics that erased early-season melodrama. To thank Mariano for being Mariano. To thank Joe Girardi. To thank the Steinbrenner clan.

But the center of it all, the heart of the team, the heart of the city, was Jeter. Because there's no Yankee like this Yankee, Derek Sanderson Jeter, the Daily News New Yorker of the Year.